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Aircraft Landing Gear Design & Development-

How Advanced Technologies are helping to meet the challenges?

- Divakaran V. N., Ravi Kumar G. V. V. and Srinivasa Rao P.

Abstract
Landing gear is one of the critical subsystems of an aircraft. The need to design
landing gear with minimum weight, minimum volume, high performance,
improved life and reduced life cycle cost have posed many challenges to landing
gear designers and practitioners. Further it is essential to reduce the landing gear
design and development cycle time while meeting all the regulatory and safety
requirements. Many technologies have been developed over the years to meet
these challenges in design and development of landing gear. This paper presents
a perspective on various stages of landing gear design and development, current
technology landscape and how these technologies are helping us to meet the
challenges involved in the development of landing gear and how they are going to
evolve in future.

Introduction
Landing Gear system is one of the critical
subsystems of an aircraft and is often
configured along with the aircraft structure
because of its substantial influence on
the aircraft structural configuration itself.
Landing gear detail design is taken up early
in the aircraft design cycle due to its long
product development cycle time. The need
to design landing gear with minimum
weight, minimum volume, reduced life
cycle cost and short development cycle
time, poses many challenges to landing
gear designers and practitioners. These
challenges have to be met by employing
advanced technologies, materials, analysis
methods, processes and production
methods. Various design and analysis tools
have been developed over the years and
new ones are still being developed.
The purpose of the landing gear in an
aircraft is to provide a suspension system
during taxi, take-off and landing. It is
designed to absorb and dissipate the
kinetic energy of landing impact, thereby
reducing the impact loads transmitted
to the airframe. The landing gear also
facilitates braking of the aircraft using
a wheel braking system and provides
directional control of the aircraft on
ground using a wheel steering system. It
is often made retractable to minimize the
aerodynamic drag on the aircraft while
flying.
The landing gear design takes into
account various requirements of strength,
stability, stiffness, ground clearance,
control and damping under all possible
ground attitudes of the aircraft. These
requirements are stipulated by the
Airworthiness Regulations to meet
operational requirements and safety. The
landing gear should occupy minimum
volume in order to reduce the stowage
space requirement in the aircraft. Further,
weight should be at minimum to increase
the performance of the aircraft. The service
life of the landing gears should be same as
that of the aircraft.
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A Landing Gear system comprises of

Typical Main Landing Gear (MLG) and

These include design, analysis,

many structural and system components.

Nose Landing Gear (NLG) are shown in

manufacturing and testing support for

The structural components include Main

Figure 1. The nose gear will have additional

landing gears. This paper presents a

fitting, Shock absorber, Bogie beam/

elements like steering actuator and

perspective on current challenges and

Trailing arm, Axle, Torque links, Drag/

steering mechanism.

how advanced tools, processes and

Side braces, Retraction actuator, Down

lock mechanism, Up lock, Wheel, Tire
etc. The system components are Brake
unit, Antiskid system, retraction system
components.

Infosys is providing various structural and

system product development services for

technologies are supporting to meet these

challenges in the life cycle of landing gears.

various commercial and military aircraft

programs across the globe.

Main Landing Gear

Nose Landing Gear

Figure 1 Aircraft Landing Gears

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Some of these Airworthiness Regulations

are given in Table 1.
Aircraft

Regulations/

Type

Specifications

Utility and
Aerobatic

FAR 23, CS 23, CAR 23

Airplanes
Civil
Transport
Airplanes

FAR 25, CS 25, CAR 25

Military

US MIL Specifications,

Aircraft

DEF-STAN-970

Table 1: Airworthiness Regulations

A brief summary of various life cycle stages
of landing gear design and development
are described below:

Concept Design
The concept design starts with a study of
all design specifications and airworthiness
regulations. A concept is then evolved
while meeting the functional and
regulatory requirements. Major design
drivers are performance, safety, cost,
time frame, technology and resources.
The landing gear location is arrived at
and type of landing gear is selected. The
landing gear geometry is defined along
with kinematics. Steering concepts are also
identified in this phase. The ground loads
are estimated using dynamic simulations
for material selection and preliminary
sizing of components. The actuation
mechanisms and loads are also worked
out in this phase. Various tradeoff studies

An Overview of Landing Gear

Design and Development

The configuration design includes choice

are performed to optimize weight, volume

of number of wheels, tire sizes, pressures,

and cost. Based on these trade-off studies a

type of shock absorbers, landing gear

best concept is selected.

The landing gear design and integration

layout, retraction kinematics and bay

Preliminary Design

process encompasses knowledge of many

engineering disciplines such as structures,
dynamics, kinematics, fluid mechanics and
runway flotation. The geometry, flotation
requirements, mission requirements and
operational requirements of the aircraft
govern the landing gear configuration.

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geometry design.
Airworthiness regulations play a crucial
role in arriving at the landing gear
configuration, such as sink rate, allowable
load factors and ground maneuvering
conditions, stipulated in the applicable
airworthiness regulations.

In the preliminary design phase, dynamic

simulations are carried out for landing,
take off and retraction kinematics to arrive
at data required for sizing of components
and material selection. Preliminary design
of components is performed and weight
estimates are arrived at.

Detailed Design
In this phase the detailed design of all the

reliability is predicted before the design

Fatigue tests including impulse fatigue

freeze.

tests on actuators, are conducted by

landing gear components is performed

Quality, reliability and maintainability

and an integrated landing gear system is

are important to cut down operational

defined with all interfaces and associated

costs and to ensure aircraft availability for

systems. Component loads are estimated

service. The design aims at increased mean

and material selection and sizing are

time between failures (MTBF) and reduced

done in this phase. Reduction in part

mean time to repair (MTTR). Periodic

count by making closed die forgings

preventive maintenance schedules and on-

for complex shapes is done through 3D

condition maintenance requirements are

CAD modeling that enable computer

specified as required. Various best practices

controlled 3D machining. Dynamic analysis

evolved are followed in design to ensure

and simulation is carried out to fine tune

good maintainability.

certain design parameters for energy

absorption, shimmy suppression and
retraction/extension. In this phase digital
mock-up of the landing gear is developed
which is essentially the virtual prototype
of the landing gear. All lessons learned
and best practices evolved over the years

block wise loading with sufficient

instrumentation for data acquisition.
Endurance cycling tests are conducted in
special rigs. Environmental tests including
vibration, acceleration, temperature,
altitude, salt spray, sand and dust etc. are
performed.

On- Aircraft Testing

The final integration tests of the landing
gear are carried out after installation on the
aircraft followed by taxi tests, braking and

Health monitoring systems are being

steering tests. Fine tuning of certain design

evolved to move towards condition based

parameters are done during this phase.

maintenance practice from scheduled

This is followed by flight testing phase

maintenance practice, which will lead

where the capability of the landing gear is

to enhanced safety and reduction in

evaluated.

maintenance costs.

In- service Evaluation

are utilized in the detail design to realize a

Manufacturing & Assembly

reliable design.

The landing gear manufacturing involves

in various types of airfield conditions

Stress & Fatigue Analysis

development of many closed die forgings,

and ambient conditions. Feedbacks on

machined components from ultra-high

reliability and maintainability results are

strength steels, titanium and aluminum

taken for further improvements in the

alloys. Precision tolerances are required

system and data generation.

Finite element modeling and analysis and

conventional hand calculation methods
are used for landing gear stress analysis.
Landing gear is designed as a safe life
structure and fatigue analysis methods
are used for prediction of life. Safe life
requirements demand as high as 60,000
landings for a commercial aircraft landing
gear whereas military aircraft requirements
are often not more than 10,000 landings.

for components like actuator cylinder,

piston, shock absorber parts and axle. Heat
treatment of parts is performed after rough
machining followed by final machining,
plating and painting. Reliability of the
product is enhanced through stringent
quality assurance requirements.

Low cycle, high stress fatigue analysis is

Qualification Testing

employed for landing gear life evaluation.

The qualification testing of landing gears

Damage tolerant design is not practicable

involves functional tests, structural tests

in most of the landing gears because of

for strength, stiffness and fatigue life tests,

the usage of very high strength materials

and environmental tests. Platform drop

which have critical flaw sizes too small

tests are conducted on rigs with load cell

to be detected by present day NDT

platform, wheel spinning facility and lift

techniques.

simulation devices to verify shock absorber

Reliability & Maintainability Analysis

performance. For structural strength tests

Proper failure mode and effect and

criticality analysis (FMECA) is performed
to assess reliability. Data on failure modes
and failure rate are collected from previous

In -service evaluation includes evaluation

of the landing gear, loads are applied

through loading actuators in required
directions and strain data is acquired
through strain gauging.

designs to conduct this analysis and

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Challenges in Landing Gear

Design & Development

Volume

The need to design landing gear with

constraints within which an aircraft

minimum weight, minimum volume, high

performance, improved life and reduced
life cycle cost poses many challenges.

Space is one of the most important

component needs to be designed,
especially in a military aircraft. A retractable
landing gear contains more components

The semi-active system works by varying

the viscosity of the fluid as required for
the damping. In active control it is aimed
to control the stiffness and damping
characteristic so as to control the ground
loads.

and mechanisms than a fixed landing gear.

For higher performance of actuation

By proper choice of material and design of

systems for landing gear, nose wheel

the geometry of mechanism it is ensured

steering and brakes, alternate systems

that requirement of retracted volume is

are being evolved. Use of hydraulic

met, while adhering to all regulatory

brought down to a minimum.

systems in place of mechanical systems

requirements of safety, by employing

Performance

Further, the design and development cycle

time of landing gear should be compressed
to reduce costs and to bring the product
to market faster. These challenges are

advanced technologies, materials,

processes, analysis and production
methods.

performance. Use of electronic control

expected in order to reduce the ground

also enhances the performance of control

loads transmitted to the airframe. This is

systems.

ensured by accurate dynamic analysis and

Landing gear is heavily loaded structure.

simulation to arrive at key performance

up weight for a fixed type to about 6%

for a retractable type landing gear. The
challenge is to reduce the weight of the
landing gear without compromising on
its functional, operational, performance,
safety and maintenance requirements.
This is made possible by using materials of
higher strength, fracture toughness and
fatigue properties and by making correct
choice for each application. These materials
include ultra-high strength alloy steels,
corrosion resistant steels, titanium alloys
and high strength aluminum alloys.
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hydraulic systems is studied for optimizing

High performance of the landing gear is

Weight
Its weight varies from 3% of aircraft all-

or use of electric systems in place of

Life

characteristics like orifice sizing, air and

Long life and minimum maintenance

oil volumes. Efficiencies as high as 85%

requirements are vital for reduction in

to 90% are achievable in landing energy

operating and maintenance costs while

absorption with passive orifice damping

minimizing the overall life cycle cost.

with proper metering pin or valve system.

This dictates the choice of materials,

Further, the pursuit for high performance

its corrosion properties and fatigue

leads to semi-active or active control

properties.

shock absorber systems. It is found that

Development Time

substantial damage is caused due to

loads in taxi phase and performance
improvement during taxi phase requires
either semi-active or active damping
systems.

The landing gear design is iterative

involving trade-off studies between
various configurations and their impact on
weight and cost benefits.

This usually takes substantial time and

effort. It is essential to reduce this product
development cycle time by automating
the design process using CAD/CAE/
CAM tools. These tools help reducing
the development time through virtual
prototyping which can be evaluated before
testing on actual prototypes. Further,
Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE)
concepts and tools are playing important
role in reducing development cycle time.

Life cycle cost

Use of advanced technologies like health
management systems and maintenance
philosophies helps in reducing the life
cycle costs. Design for condition based
maintenance instead of scheduled
maintenance is one such trend and is
compatible with health management
systems.

Brake system
Electronically controlled antiskid brake

Landing Gear Technologies

management systems are replacing old

Landing gear technologies are

Electronic systems are more efficient and

continuously evolving to meet the

trouble free.

challenges of functional and non-

mechanical or electric antiskid systems.

The choice of material for a landing gear

component is decided depending on its
application and this requires trade off
studies of strength, stiffness and cost to
arrive at the optimal choice. Fatigue and
fracture toughness properties and aspects
like protection against stress corrosion,

Tires

wear, reliability in service etc. are other

important technologies are presented

Radial tire is one of the advanced

considerations in the selection of material

below:

technologies employed in aircraft for the

for the landing gear.

past 25 years. Landing gear radial tires

Carbon composite brake disc offers

offer lighter tires with longer life compared

reduced weight, longer life and

to bias ply tires.

maintenance free wheel brakes thereby

Up-locks

reducing the cost per landing.

Hydro-mechanical locking systems

Corrosion protection

and proximity switches are replacing

Good corrosion protection is important for

mechanical locks and micro-switches. They

the landing gear components as they are

have higher reliability.

susceptible for easy environment attack.

Materials

Apart from normal electrolytic finishes like

functional requirements. Some of these

Steering System
Steering control systems are moving
towards electronic control systems
replacing hydro-mechanical systems. The
main advantage with electronic control
system is its accuracy and its ability to
incorporate changes in design parameters
like steering rate and steering ratio with
ease.

Actuation System
In actuation systems, more electric or
all electric systems are replacing the
conventional hydraulic systems. The
electric systems offered today have
become weight competitive with use of
brushless high power motors. Further,
electric systems help to overcome
problems of leakage and fire hazard.

Composites are being used in some

components of landing gear because
of their superior specific strength and
stiffness properties. Cost used to be
one factor against their favor, which is
now being overcome with improved

cadmium plating, hard chromium plating,

HVOF etc. epoxy or polyurethane primer
and polyurethane top coats are applied
for the exposed landing gear parts. Use
of corrosion resistant materials is also
becoming increasingly popular.

manufacturing techniques. Ultra-high

strength steels are used due to its
high strength to weight ratio and size
advantage.
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CAX Technologies
Many commercially available CAD/

Tools to compute axle travels

Adequate torsional stiffness and damping

requirements

are required to ensure a shimmy free

landing gear. Mathematical models are

CAM/CAE/CFD and Dynamic Simulation

Tools to analyze retraction actuation

software tools are used in the design

Shock absorber performance

optimization tools

and development of landing gear. These

tools have helped in virtual product

development of landing gear before actual

prototype is being fabricated. These help to
improve designs with reduced cycle time
and cost. Few of them include

CAD Tools

CAE Tools

Dynamic
Simulation
Tools

CFD Tools

Kinematics

CATIA V5, UG, Solid

works,
NASTRAN, ABAQUS,
ANSYS, Hypermesh,
Optistruct
MATLAB, SIMULINK,
ADAMS

Rake and Trail requirements analysis

CATIA V5, UG, Solid

works,

Shimmy analysis tools

Landing gear is a maintenance intensive

system of the aircraft next to only engine.

Dynamic Simulation

Health monitoring of landing gear is

Dynamic simulation helps to predict

gaining importance as suitable sensors

the performance of a component or

assembly. The results of these simulations
will be more accurate compared to hand
calculations. These simulations help in
handling large number of studies in short

takes into account the hydraulic damping,

air spring characteristics and friction effects
and structural flexibility in the landing gear.
Using the computer models developed
for this purpose the shock absorber
parameters are optimized to maximize
This helps in preliminary estimation of

analysis.

company specific knowledge. These tools

leads to drastic reduction in development
cycle time, reduction in human errors,

use in geometric modeling and kinematic

The retraction/extension kinematics and

actuation are also simulated by dynamic
modeling of the hydraulic actuation and
CFD analysis to arrive at the actuator sizing.
The CFD analysis is used to arrive at the
aerodynamic loads acting on the landing

ability to redesign iteratively and capturing

gear during retraction/extension process.

organizational knowledge. Few of these

Thus simulations helps to mitigate the risk

tools include

in the design and development process,

which otherwise requires iterations after

Tools for selection of number of tires

and pressures taking the ground

extensive and expensive testing.

flotation requirement

Shimmy oscillations are a perennial

Wheel/Brake sizing tools

problem in design and operation of

Ground load estimation tools

landing gears and proper analysis is

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health management of aircraft systems

and structures including landing gear.

and maintenance costs, but also helps

performance is evaluated by a dynamic

Many Knowledge Based Engineering

engineering processes while retaining

technologies are being employed in

The landing gear shock absorber

the sizing of the landing gear elements for

landing gear designers to automate many

today. Wireless sensor network and RFID

Health monitoring not only improves

Knowledge Based Engineering (KBE)

tools are being developed and used by

and processing units are available

time.

impact loads and taxi loads to arrive at

(KBE) tools and information intelligence

shimmy oscillations.

Health monitoring

its efficiency and peak reaction behavior.

Table 2: CAX Tools

design damping devices to control the

tools

simulation of the landing and taxiing. This

Flow works, AnsysFluent, Ansys-CFX,
Star CD

used to predict onset of shimmy and to

required to control/overcome it.

the safety and reduces both operational

in extending the life of the landing gear
beyond designed service life.

Summary of Future Landing

Gear Technologies

design, more electric or all electric

smart sensors that are more durable and

concepts are gaining momentum to

energy efficient and will drive towards

In future landing gear design and

replace hydraulic actuation, which is

condition based maintenance philosophy.

known for its problems of leaks and

Big Data technologies, advanced

flammability. Electric actuation systems

analytics techniques and tools will help

are becoming weight competitive

in capturing and reusing the operational

enough to displace the old hydraulic

and maintenance data providing greater

actuation systems. Carbon composite

insights. This will help in reducing the

brake materials have become a mature

maintenance and operational costs

technology like the radial tires and will be

drastically. Crashworthy landing gears

used widely in future landing gears. CAX

for use on helicopters pose additional

and KBE will be used more effectively. In

challenges in absorbing large quantities of

addition, integrated health management

energy resulting from a crash. This includes

systems for diagnostic and prognostic

fuse orifices and additional chambers in

analysis will employ next generation

the oleo.

development will use high strength

materials, active damping systems and
accurate load estimation techniques.
Active damping system aims at reducing
taxi loads which are known to be a very
significant contributor of fatigue failure.
It is found that taxi damages are close to
50% of total damages in a commercial
aircraft. Future is also expected to witness
increased use of composite materials for
many components. In actuation system

Table 3: How Technologies Help to meet Challenges?

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Design Life Cycle Stage

Technology Trend

Material Selection

Ultra high strength metallic materials, advanced composites, Radial tires, Carbon composite brake discs

Design

3D modeling and design, Simulation, virtual prototyping, KBE

Systems

All electric actuation, Electronic control

Analysis

FEA, Fatigue and Damage Tolerance Analysis

Testing

More Accurate systems for strain gauging and data acquisition

Maintenance

Health monitoring, Wireless Sensor Networks, RFID technologies

Reliability

Accurate failure rates based on feedback data from field

Table 4: Technology trends for future landing design

Conclusions
The need to design landing gear with

These technologies have matured over

materials, analysis methods, processes

minimum weight, minimum volume,

the years and widely used in the current

and production methods. By applying

high performance, improved life and

landing gear system and new technologies

functional simulation and developing

reduced life cycle cost have posed many

will continue to evolve in future.

design tools, the development time and

challenges to landing gear designers

and practitioners. Further it is essential
to reduce the landing gear design and
development cycle time while meeting all
the safety and regulatory requirements.
Many technologies have been developed
over the years to meet the challenges of
landing gear design and development.
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The future landing gear design for

aircraft poses many new challenges in
configuration design, use of materials,
design and analysis methods. These
challenges can be met, while adhering to
all regulatory requirements of safety, by
employing advanced technologies,

cost are reduced considerably. Use of

higher strength materials, composites, and
technologies like active damping control,
electric systems, along with CAX, KBE and
health monitoring technologies will steer
the landing gear design in the days to
come.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank senior management of engineering services practice of Infosys for their continuous support and
encouragement.

About authors
Divakaran V.N.
is a Consultant with Infosys since December, 2006. Prior to this, he was Head of Design (Mechanical Systems) at Hindustan
Aeronautics Ltd in its Aircraft Research and Design Centre. At HAL he has over 35 years of experience in design and
development of landing gears and other mechanical systems, working in military aircraft programs like Light Combat
Aircraft, Advanced Light Helicopter, Intermediate Jet Trainer and civil Light Transport Aircraft. He has two patents
in mechanical design. He obtained degree in mechanical engineering from NIT, Calicut and underwent 9 months of
institutional training in Aeronautics at Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.

Dr Ravikumar, G.V.V.
is Senior Principal and Head Advanced Engineering Group (AEG) brings together 21 years of research and industrial
experience in Aircraft Industry. His areas of interest include Aircraft Structures, Knowledge Based Engineering, Composites
and Structural Health Monitoring. He authored more than 30 technical papers in various journals/conferences/white papers
and filed a patent. He worked on various prestigious engineering design and development, KBE tool development projects
for both military and commercial aircraft programs including Indian light combat aircraft (LCA). He obtained his doctoral
degree in Applied Mechanics from IIT Delhi. He worked in Tata Research Design and Development Center (TRDDC), Pune
and Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) Bangalore prior to joining Infosys.

Srinivasa Rao Patnala

is a Practice Manager brings about 23 years of industry experience with focused aerospace experience for about 20 years.
His technical area of expertise is in the stress analysis of metallic aero structures and finite element analysis. He led several
projects on design and development of structural systems for global commercial aircraft prorams. He has the distinction
of perfoming a technical signatory role in one of the European Aircraft type certification program. He obtained his masters
degree in Mechanical Engineering from Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore. He has worked on missle structures during
his initial 8 years of stint at Defence Research and Development Laboratory (DRDL), Hyderabad.

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